PARIS, 27 Nov 2009 - Rosalie, auburn hair and cherry plum lipstick which matches her sweater, cannot bear totake the subway: “There is such a crowd in there. It is a real pain”. Rosalie does not suffer from agoraphobia:she is just a clairvoyant. When she takes a walk outside, people’s emotions may overcome her at any time.

Being a clairvoyant was not exactly a dream career during Middle Ages times. But at the beginning of the 21stcentury, the profession boasts an incredible popularity. “Everybody nowadays consults clairvoyants. They aren’tregarded as crazy, gullible or stupid people anymore”. Indeed. More than ten million French souls seek theiradvice every year. “Seeing a doctor or a psychologist is not enough. People need someone who can heareverything".

Clairvoyance is not solely a reply to the does-he-love-me-or-not interrogations of hearts in distress.Thanks to the economic crisis, the number of clients is flaring up. “The professional problems have overcomethe sentimental ones”. Women and homosexual still make for most of the clients; yet many executives look forbusiness advices. Rosalie’s clients range from 20 to 70 years old, with the poor and the well-off bounded by thesame nostalgic longing for enchantment.

In the Parisian brasserie, Rosalie asks the waiter for some pistachios to accompany her beer. Born A.R., she chose her surname as a tribute to her greatmother, Rosalie, a clairvoyant as well. "If someone didnot act nicely towards her, bad things would happen to him". His husband, a seaman, once did not get paid by aman. “His car broke down”. Fortunately the waiter does not fail to bring to Rosalie the Second her pistachios. “Idon’t have her talent”, Rosalie assures anyway.

Born in 1954, A.R. experienced premonitions at an early age. She dreamed the death of senatorRobert Kennedy in 1968, the night he was assassinated. “I saw him being shot and falling on the ground”.However, she first kept her talents bottled up. She started as a company psychologist, and then worked fortwenty years as a production manager for national TV channels. Now she has been teaching for five years TVproduction.

During her various stays in Africa, she got acquainted with divinatory arts. “I went to see marabouts. They arethe only ones in my life who ever told me true things”. A few years ago, she belatedly started to put small ads onclairvoyant websites. Do not try however to find Rosalie’s crystal ball: the clairvoyant in modern times is aFacebook-user who consults via Skype (± €50 for 30 minutes), so she can reach people living in provinces or abroad or those who want to remain anonymous. Rosalie even opened a Twitter account a few weeks ago.

The waiter brings another beer and additional pistachios. Rosalie’s earrings shine under the dim light of thebrasserie. “You talk, people listen”. An African marabout told her so years ago.But sometimes, people listen too much. Clairvoyance is nowadays less about predicting one’s future than aboutcoaching. “We are the therapists of modern times”. Rosalie blames her clients’ lack of will. “Some people wantto reach the moon, yet they don’t even bother to take a ladder”.

Profit-hungry clairvoyants eager to sell such ladders abound. “There are excellent tarotologists, but there aremany scams” according to Rosalie, who denounces them on her blog. She regards herself as a “normal” person,suspicious towards any esoteric discourse. The newspapers’ daily horoscope? She likes to read them at times…“to discover what won’t happen to me”. “Most clairvoyants are religious people. I am not. I am a Cartesianclairvoyant”.

Yet there is one thing Rosalie believes in: reincarnation. She is convinced to have been an African slave in aprevious life. “When I went to Goree Island in Senegal, I broke down, crying. I later learned it was a formerslave island”. As she mentions the place, her emotion is still vivid. “I’m black inside”.

At night, Rosalie does not sleep. She suffers from insomnia. “Even if I protect myself, I’m still vulnerable”. After a consultation, she goes out, walks around Montmartre. She has been living there since 1995. She doesn’t takemore than three, four persons per day. But she gives them “everything”.

At the brasserie, the beer glasses are empty. Rosalie’s flamboyant silhouette disappears in the night. Leaving behind her a pile of pistachios shells and mysteries.